Regulatory AI HUB

Hello, today we are going to be covering some recent chemical & material compliance developments.

US State Regulations

We have been seeing the rise of US State Regulations for chemical & materials, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), children’s products and even sustainability over the past say 5 years. It has created an interesting phenomenon because some of the state regulations that are passed are not as grounded in science and economic feasibility as the slower moving and thorough EPA regulations. In general, the EPA has significantly more resources to evaluate toxicology, ecotoxicology, exposures and economic alternatives that state environmental or health departments.

This is partly why we see regulations, such as Minnesota’s 2032 ban on all intentionally added PFAS. This will be very challenging for industry to comply with as to date there are no alternatives for many PFAS substance applications. Some silicone-based alternatives are being developed. However, today there are generally significantly increased costs for any alternatives, as well as performance tradeoffs. PFAS are useful for heat and chemical resistance, for example.

PFAS are being regulated because they persist for long periods of time in the environment, which can make them very polluting (but also is responsible for their remarkable properties such as heat and chemical resistance that have made many modern products possible). PFAS substances also can disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system.

In general, many US states seem to be following Europe’s lead in being the first jurisdictions to regulate new substances and substance classes based on emerging toxicology & ecotoxicology research.

In many ways, these regulations, even if aspirational are probably good because they are spurring research and development activity into developing new, (hopefully) less toxic compounds.

However, we need to be careful to balance increasing costs of products with lowering the toxic exposure to consumers.